Cost-effective recovery of fresh water from seawater is critical to a wide range of industries such as the power, chemical, marine, oil and gas industries. During the distillation process, the formation of scale on heat transfer surfaces can significantly reduce heat transfer efficiency and increase operation and maintenance costs. Scale formation depends on temperature, concentration and pH, but generally takes the form of:
Conventional scale inhibition methods, such as the use of sulphuric acid and polyphosphates, have given rise to a new generation of antiscalants based on polycarboxylic acids.